Brexit-on-sea: Why do voters on Essex's protected coast want out of Europe?

Residents in the Ukip stronghold of Clacton-on-Sea are rightly proud of their clean beaches, fresh air and wildlife. Would they still vote leave if they knew the things they love about their town are thanks to EU membership?

Clacton is predicted to be one of the UK’s top retirement destinations within 20 years with many coming for the fresh sea air and unspoiled nature.
Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Brexit-on-sea: Why do voters on Essex's protected coast want out of Europe?

Residents in the Ukip stronghold of Clacton-on-Sea are rightly proud of their clean beaches, fresh air and wildlife. Would they still vote leave if they knew the things they love about their town are thanks to EU membership?

Audrey James and and Mary Chivers, skirts hitched and shoes off, are paddling with their grandchildren by the pier at Clacton-on-Sea. A huge offshore windfarm spins in the distance and all around them are clean beaches, clear water and protected nature reserves.

“Pollution? Here? I did not know that. They need to clean it up then, don’t they?” Chivers, who says she came from Tottenham in north London in 2005, is a Ukip voter and plans to vote Brexit. “I wondered why there was no blue flag.”

The two women from one of the most Eurosceptic towns in the UK, say they live in Clacton because of the sea air, the clean water and Essex’s unspoiled nature.

“I don’t mind the wind power out there. I love all this fresh air. That’s why I left polluted London. But I didn’t know that Europe cleaned up the beaches and protected places,” said James, who also wants Britain to leave the EU.

Neil Stock, leader of the Conservative Tendring district council has decided to remain neutral on the in/out question because of the strong Ukip contingent on the council. “But I must say we probably would not have a lot of what we have here without Europe. People like the clean beaches and the nature reserves here and yet they are the ones frothing at the mouth about the EU,” he says. “Credit where it’s due. The environment is the most positive reason [for staying in EU]. It would take the most rabid ‘outer’ to deny that.”

Clacton is predicted to be one of the UK’s top retirement destinations within 20 years with 60% of people over 60. “Unquestionably, old people like the good environment. We have got what we have because of the the EU rules. Would we have got what we have without the EU? I suspect not,” says Stock.

“I see it differently,” says Mary Newton, Ukip councillor for the town’s Rush Green ward, who conceded that Britain had been tagged “the dirty man of Europe” until Europe had cracked the whip.

“But there’s no point having beautiful beaches if you wreck your car getting there in the potholes is there? This is like a third world country. I don’t think we owe Europe much at all [for the environment]. They put paid to fishing and farming.”

Newton is organising three free showings of Brexit: the Movie in the run-up to next week’s referendum. The film, described by Newsweek as “a libertarian’s wet dream”, was made by controversial documentary maker Martin Durkin, whose 2007 film for Channel 4 which argued that manmade climate change was a fraud and a conspiracy was censured for misrepresenting scientists.

His film has had more than 2.7m views on Facebook but less than 10,000 likes - a figure set to increase when seen in Clacton. “Hopefully the film will convince people to leave. Only a handful of seniors have not made up their mind yet. It’s the younger generation and the unemployed who are not decided. They are terrified they will lose their benefits if we leave,” says Newton.

Virtually all of Essex’s intertidal coastline is designated by Europe as a special protected area, and has the strongest level of European protection. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Holland-on-sea, which has the oldest age profile in Britain, according to Stock, is decked with Leave posters and English flags and there are mobility scooters parked outside many of the shops.

“I come from Redbridge [in north-east London]. Let’s just say it got overcrowded. When you are a bit older you want space. You come here for the clean air and the beaches. It’s quiet, isn’t it? A lot of people have already made their mind up,” says Mary, one of nine women meeting for coffee at the Mocha Choca cafe.

They say they particularly like the Essex coastline, but did not know that it is one of the most protected in Britain because most of it has the strongest level of European preservation via the European birds and habitat directives.

What has the EU ever done for my … beach?

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Nor did they know that the European court of justice had found the UK Conservative government had acted illegally in 1993 when it wanted a huge cargo park to be built at Lappel Bank on the river Medway, an area of international importance for birds.

“Virtually all of Essex’s intertidal coastline is designated by Europe as special protected area, and has the strongest level of European protection,” says Chris Tyas, RSPB project manager for the Wallasea island wild coastal project and former senior warden of Old Hall Marshes, 500 acres of coastal grazing marshes.

“The EU nature directives have provided the highest level of protection for the area. They play an important role in protecting our wildlife,” said Tyas.

But at the other end of Clacton is Jaywick Sands, a ward of Tendring district council which was built in the 1930s as a beachside holiday village for Londoners but is now one of most deprived neighbourhoods in England, with more than half the working age residents on benefits.

The Brooklands estate in East Jaywick, near Clacton, Essex, which has been classed as the most deprived neighbourhood in England, according to official statistics. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA

“It was known as Little Beirut. The council has been shamed into improving it now but this is one reason why so many people will vote Brexit. People here do value their environment but they fear that the area is becoming a dumping ground for other councils to get rid of their undesirables, like ex-cons and drug users,” says Paul Smart, a former builder.

Out on the pier, Gypsy fortune teller Rosalee offers to look into her crystal ball and pronounce on the result of the referendum.

Under a sign reading: “Your destiny is your future,” she peers deep into the glass and frowns mysteriously.

Her prediction is unlikely to give much comfort to either side: “I see big changes ahead. I see us voting to come out of Europe. But I don’t see us actually leaving.”